Power and the people: Hank Greenberg

From Matt Whitener at The Sports Fan Journal on June 4, 2013, with mention of SABR member Aviva Kempner:

Of all the many parts of the lore of the history of Major League Baseball, perhaps the story of Hank Greenberg gets overlooked the easiest. Yet, the transcendent impact that the first great Jewish sports superstar had on both baseball and America truly aligns with both the times and progression of sports and America at large. In the film “The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg,” director Aviva Kempner brought to life the story of one of the great progressive stars in sports history.

The story presented in the film covering the Detroit Tigers great is a dual chronicle of the Golden Age of baseball, as well as a story of cultural expansion in the United States. Greenberg was exceptional in every way. He was one of the great ballplayers of any generation (two-time MVP, four seasons of 40 home runs, an indisputable 58 in 1938). But more than that, his story is the story of both cultural challenges and evolution. Greenberg stood for a people, a Jewish people that largely wasn’t accepted in America. His successes were far from just his own. They brought pride and a new identity to a discriminated against and marginalized culture.